The personal blog of Peter Lee a.k.a. "China Hand"... Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel, and an open book to those who read. You are welcome to contact China Matters at the address chinamatters --a-- prlee.org or follow me on twitter @chinahand.

In a dismaying week for the PRC, India turned its back on China...and thereby drifted further away from the narrative of Japanese criminal aggression in World War II that China and the United States have exploited for the last half century.

Idon’t know if there is a term in the diplomatic lexicon
for “deep tongue kiss accompanied by groans of mutual fulfillment”, but if
there is, it seems it would be illustrated by the encounter between Indian
President Manmohan Singh and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in Tokyo May 27-29, 2013.

Speaking to an assembly of Japanese government and corporate
worthies in Tokyo, Singh said:

Asia’s resurgence
began over a century ago on this island of the Rising Sun. Ever since, Japan has
shown us the way forward. India and Japan have a shared vision of a rising
Asia. Over the past decade, therefore, our two countries have established a new
relationship based on shared values and shared interests.

…

Our relationship with
Japan has been at the heart of our Look East Policy. Japan inspired Asia's
surge to prosperity and it remains integral to Asia’s future. The world has a
huge stake in Japan’s success in restoring the momentum of its growth. Your
continued leadership in enterprise, technology and innovation and your ability
to remain the locomotive of Asian renaissance are crucial.

India's relations with Japan are important not only for our economic
development, but also because we see Japan as a natural and indispensable
partner in our quest for stability and peace in the vast region in Asia that is
washed by the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Our relations draw their strength from our spiritual, cultural and
civilizational affinities and a shared commitment to the ideals of democracy,
peace and freedom. We have increasingly convergent world views and growing
stakes in each other’s prosperity. We have shared interests in maritime
security and we face similar challenges to our energy security. There are
strong synergies between our economies, which need an open, rule-based
international trading system to prosper. Together, we seek a new architecture
for the United Nations Security Council.

In recent years, our political and security cooperation has gained in salience.
Japan is the only partner with whom we have a 2-plus-2 Dialogue between the
Foreign and Defence Ministries. We have also begun bilateral exercises with the
Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force.

The romance was consecrated by an audience with the Japanese
emperor and empress for Singh and his wife, and the announcement that the royal
couple, apparently in Japan’s version of panda diplomacy, would be visiting
India before the year’s end in only the second overseas trip for the aging emperor
since 2009.

It should also be noted that India is studying Japan’s offer
to sell an amphibious plane, the US-2, that would be de facto Japan’s first overseas military sale, though it would go
out under the flag of “dual use”.

Compare and contrast Singh’s effusions in Tokyo with the
proper but distant tone of the communique on Chinese PM Li Keqiang’s recent visit
to India:

There is enough space
in the world for the development of India and China, and the world needs the
common development of both countries. As the two largest developing countries
in the world, the relationship between India and China transcends bilateral
scope and has acquired regional, global and strategic significance. Both
countries view each other as partners for mutual benefit and not as rivals or
competitors.

Much of the Indian coverage gave full rein to anti-PRC
feelings (The Hindu being the exception, although it perforce titled its
skeptical editorial on Singh’s Japan trip as “Love in Tokyo” ),
implying that India’s vociferous China bashers were celebrating an overt shift
in Indian government attitudes or, at the very least, Japan had been extremely thorough
in its spadework with right-wing Indian media to cultivate a Japan-India
alliance.

It’s true that no other country in the
world today feels as threatened by China’s so-called “peaceful rise” as Japan.
But then India too feels threatened by China. That is why Shinzo Abe, the
Japanese Prime Minister and a known India friend, had said in his address to
the joint session of Indian parliament in the Central Hall in the summer of
2007 that the Indo-Japan relations were a “confluence of the two seas”, a
phrase that he drew from the title of a book written by the Mughal prince Dara
Shikoh in 1655.

Abe is an unabashed China-basher who
says he is determined to see that the South China Sea does not become a “Lake
Beijing”. He has proposed an ADSD – Asia Democratic Security Diamond,
comprising Japan, India, Australia and the US.

This is what Abe said in a signed
article in December 2012: “If Japan were to yield, the South China Sea would
become even more fortified. Freedom of navigation, vital for trading countries
such as Japan and South Korea, would be seriously hindered. The naval assets of
the United States, in addition to those of Japan, would find it difficult to
enter the entire area, though the majority of the two China seas is
international water.”

Abe has forecast that in about a
decade Japan-India relations would overtake Japan-China and even Japan-US
relations. “I envisage a strategy whereby Australia, India, Japan, and the US
state of Hawaii form a diamond to safeguard the maritime commons stretching
from the Indian Ocean region to the western Pacific,” he said in this article.

…

India and Japan were
never as close to each other as they are today. The bonding is to become all
the stronger in the near future. All thanks to China.

A brief note: the “Democratic Security Diamond” was
originally bruited about in Abe’s first term and independently
championed by US
Vice President Dick Cheney back in 2007 as an effort to stovepipe
freedom into Asia with the help of a conservative regional ally against
the wishes of the rest of the Bush administration, which had decided to
sideline Cheney's team and was rather desperately trying to engage the
PRC on the North Korea nuclear issue.

Japan occupies a large
space in Manmohan Singh's heart, and he has logged enough frequent flyer miles
to Tokyo to prove it. When he lands in Tokyo on Monday, Singh is certain to get
the kind of reception that will show Japan reciprocates in full measure.

…

Japan has the kind of technological
and innovation heft India needs in spades. Acknowledging this, the PM once
famously listed three of India's relationships he described as
"transformational" - US, Japan and Germany - that if India used these
relationships wisely, they could help transform our nation. …With Shinzo Abe back in power in Japan
with a convincing mandate and a will to resuscitate Japan from its "lost
decades", India has a unique opportunity.

…

It is time India came
out of the closet to strengthen the countries in the region: Indonesia, Vietnam
and the real power in Asia - Japan. India should not waste its time looking for
Japanese endorsement of Kashmir or Arunachal Pradesh, though many officials
will tell you this is why we're kind of reticent with them. Instead, India
should be more helpful on the Senkaku/Diaoyu issue - because if China gets away
with this one, it will be unstoppable everywhere else.

Put China on the list of observers who came away with the
impression of an Indo-Japanese lovefest.

For an illustration for the diplomatic equivalent of “green
eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on” i.e. jealousy/envy/sour
grapes, read this People’s Daily editorial which attempts to put the resolution
of a minor border intrusion during Li Keqiang’s visit to India on par with the multi-course
love feast between Singh and Abe (while diplomatically putting the blame for
Singh’s dalliance on Abe’s shoulders):

Sino-Indian diplomatic miracle embarrasses Japanese politicians

“The clouds in the sky cannot blot out
the sunshine of Sino-Indian friendship,” said Premier Li Keqiang when
describing the Sino-Indian ties on the last day of his stay in India.

Before Premier Li Keqiang’s visit, the China-India border standoff was hyped up
by international media. The divergence and contradictions between the two
countries were also exaggerated as if the Sino-Indian ties had been strained
suddenly.

But what surprised the media was that China and India properly solved the issue
in a short time. During Premier Li Keqiang’s visit, the top leaders of both
countries had sincere and candid talks and came to a series of strategic
consensus and cooperation. The shift of Sino-Indian ties in such a short time
is a miracle.

In the development of Sino-Indian ties there are several divergence and
contradictions. Some countries see these differences as an opportunity to
provoke dissension.

Not long ago, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on Japan, India,
Australia and the U.S. to jointly form a “Democratic Security Diamond” to
compete with the ascendant China. He also proposed that Japan should promote
“Strategic Diplomacy” and “Values Diplomacy” and made visits in countries
around China. Some politicians just made themselves petty burglars on
China-related issues.

The so-called “Democratic Security Diamond”, “Strategic Diplomacy” and “Values
Diplomacy” among other new terms seem very strategic. But in fact they unveiled
the narrow-minded diplomatic thoughts of Japanese government. The conspiracy of
these petty burglars is doomed to fail…

It is difficult to shed the feeling that Indian commentators
who detect an anti-China shift in Indian government policy are on to something.

Certainly, the JapanIndia affair has sound diplomatic and
economic bases.

India is not happy about its immense trade deficit with
China; Japan sees India as a cheap overseas labor source and Abe needs some big
ticket deals with India to keep the economy humming and keep Abenomics out of
the ditch, especially with Japan-China relations in the icebox.

Various national quid pro quos are at work—several billion
dollars in Japanese loans, Indian support for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, and a
promise to work together to change the structure of the UN Security Council, to
date notably China-heavy and Japan- and-India-free.

But an interested reader—and, for that matter the Chinese
government—cannot escape the sense that Singh, encouraged by Abe’s vigorous
approach to restoring Japan’s national and regional stature, has decided to
place an open bet on Japan—a fellow democracy and, until recent years at least,
acknowledged master of the global economic and financial game--instead of obstreperous,
state socialist China in the Asian sweepstakes.

Therefore, I for once and very gingerly take issue with the
esteemed Mr. Bhadrakumar’s conclusion
that China’s assertiveness in Ladakh strengthened the hands of India’s China
bashers and queered Li Keqiang’s trip and Sino-Indian relations overall.Given the apparent desire of Prime Minister
Singh to opt for a Japan partnership, maybe somebody thought an Indian
provocation in Ladakh would yield a timely and useful piece of anti-Chinese
framing to the encounter in Tokyo.

Maybe Mr. Singh’s heart was in Japan from the beginning.

Guided by an admonitory op-ed in Global Times, I looked up “Radhabinod Pal“ on Wikipedia.

In Internet speak, TIL (today I learned) that Pal was an
Indian jurist on the Japan war crimes tribunal in 1946.Pal was enamored of the anti-colonial
rhetoric that accompanied the Japanese “advance” into SE Asia.He believed the United States had provoked
Japan into war (the Japanese response was therefore not “aggressive”), was
concerned with unpunished Allied wartime atrocities, and declined to endorse the “triumph
of civilization” narrative of Japan’s defeat or the creation of “Class A” war
criminal category that the Occupation used to prosecute the Japanese military
and civilian leadership.

While
acknowledging the commission of atrocities in the field (though a Nanjing
Massacre skeptic), Pal voted for acquittal of the “Class A” defendants and prepared
a 1235-page dissenting opinion—suppressed by the Occupation until 1952--
stating that the trial was a “victor’s justice” travesty.

So far so good.

After his dissent was published, Pal, unsurprisingly, became
a hero to Japanese nationalists.Given
the legal and moral flaws of the tribunal, the standard explanation is that Pal
was simply a scrupulous jurist whose dissent got cherrypicked by nasty
nationalists for verbiage that supported their claim that the only thing Japan
did wrong in World War II was lose it.

Actually, as an article at Japan Focus by Japanese scholar Tekeshi Nakajima points out, in his dissent Pal went beyond
challenging the legality and validity of the tribunal to excusing Japanese--activities?
Aggression? Advances? Choose your favorite word-- on the grounds that Japan was
getting picked on by the West.

This is rather obvious in Pal’s treatment of Japan’s
incursion into Manchuria, which Japan did on its own kick without the excuse
that the US was forcing it into war.

Pal probably found it extremely awkward that Japan, in his
mind the front line of resistance to western colonialism, adopted nakedly
colonial policies in its dismemberment of China and subjugation of Manchuria.

He attempted to resolve his difficulties by deploying what
might be characterized as the “monkey see monkey do” defense—that Japan,
deluded by the precedent, pretexts, and spurious legality of Western colonial
intrusions, mistakenly adopted the same methods and, indeed, erroneously
adopted the very idea that it needed to occupy Manchuria, from the West.

After dismissing the Manchurian and Marco Polo Bridge
incidents as examples of simple overexuberance by officers in the field and not
elements of a conspiracy to justify occupation of north and northeast China, Pal
deployed the “delusion” defense, as Nakajima writes:

Justice Pal then critically examined Western Imperialism,
which, he asserted, Japan had imitated. Quoting the Survey of International Affairs 1932,
he turned the target of the criticism toward the colonial policies of Western
Powers:

Was it not Western Imperialism that had coined the word
‘protectorate’ as a euphemism for ‘annexation’? And had not this constitutional
fiction served its Western inventors in good stead? Was not this the method by
which the Government of the French Republic had stepped into the shoes of the
Sultan of Morocco, and by which the British Crown had transferred the
possession of vast tracts of land in East Africa from native African to
adventitious European hands?30

For Justice Pal, Japan’s ‘farce’ was nothing but the result
of imitating Western fashions of imperialism. From this point of view, he
questioned why only Japan’s establishment of Manchukuo could be assessed as
‘aggression’. Weren’t Western countries morally guilty as well in practicing
colonialism? If the acts of aggression by Western countries were not charged as
crimes, why was the establishment of Manchukuo by Japan?

Justice Pal further quoted the Survey of International Affairs 1932:

Though the Japanese failed to make the most of these Western
precedents in stating their case for performing the farce of ‘Manchukuo’, it
may legitimately be conjectured that Western as well as Japanese precedents had
in fact suggested, and commended, this line of policy to Japanese minds.31

By saying, ‘[i]t may not be a justifiable policy, justifying
one nation’s expansion in another’s territory’,32 he emphasised
that both Japan and the Western countries were morally responsible for the
colonisation of other nations. Justice Pal explained that Japan was at that
time possessed with a ‘delusion’ and believed that the country would face death
and destruction if it failed in acquiring Manchuria.33

Pal
regarded this as the reason for Japan’s attempts to establish interests which
it saw as necessary for its very existence. Justice Pal said that carrying out
a military operation driven by ‘delusion’ was not unique to Japan as it had been
repeatedly practised on a large scale by
Western countries for many years. Saying, ‘[a]lmost every great power acquired
similar interests within the territories of the Eastern Hemisphere and, it
seems, every such power considered that interest to be very vital’, Pal argued
that Japan had the ‘right’ to argue that the Manchurian Incident was necessary
for the sake of ‘self-defense’.34

Japan claiming national
‘self-defense’ in regard to its territorial expansion in China was in step with
international society at the time, Pal said, and thus Japan’s actions stemmed
from the ‘imitation’ of an evil practice of Western imperialism. Based on this
premise, he concluded: ‘The action of Japan in Manchuria would not, it is
certain, be applauded by the world. At the same time it would be difficult to
condemn the same as criminal.’35

I, for one, find that Pal’s brief goes beyond the
questioning of a dubious legal proceeding by a distinguished and experienced
international jurist to rather dishonorable special pleading on behalf of his
favorite country, Japan on the grounds of “everybody else was doing it, so it
should have been OK, oops, make that that 'necessary'.”

Try that defense next time you’re caught cheating on your
taxes.

And there’s this:

In In 1966, the Emperor of Japan conferred upon Pal—who stated
his lifelong admiration of Japan as the one Asian country that stood up to the
West-- the First Class of the Order of the Sacred Treasure.

The Pal dissent is more than ancient history; it is a cornerstone of the recent nationalist
tilt of the Japanese government and the determination of Japanese nationalists to claim an untainted leadership role for Japan as the pre-eminent Asian practitioner of the modern arts of economics, democracy, and warfare (defeated but not discredited in the "great war"), as can be seen from this Telegraph report of the aftermath of the LDP’s victory at
the polls in 2012:

"The view of that great war was not formed by the
Japanese themselves, but rather by the victorious Allies, and it is by their
judgement only that [Japanese] were condemned," Mr Abe told a meeting of the
House of Representatives Budget Committee on Tuesday.

In his previous short-lived spell as prime minister, for 12
months from September 2006, Mr Abe said that the 28 Japanese military and
political leaders charged with Class-A war crimes are "not war criminals
under the laws of Japan."

Pal was enshrined at Yasukuni, which gives the lie to the
claim that it is simply a war dead memorial and not a revisionist shrine.The photo illustrating Pal’s entry in
Wikipedia is his Yasukuni stele.

Prime Minister Abe made a pilgrimage to Kolkata in 2007 to
meet with Pal’s son and receive a couple pictures of Pal with Abe’s
father-in-law [correction: Abe's maternal grandfather], ex-Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, who was detained after the war
as a suspected Class A criminal but never indicted or tried.

For those who like their national history convoluted, it
should also be pointed out that Pal was an admirer of the Indian National Army,
which fought with the Japanese against the British in Malaya and Burma.When the British attempted to try the leaders of
the INA for treason after the war, the combination of outrage in the Indian
military and popular revulsion against the British exercise of justice was a
crucial factor in Great Britain throwing in the towel and granting Indian
independence.

So, by an alternate reading of history, Japan can claim
credit for the decolonization of India as well as Malaysia and Burma.

Prime Minister Singh is unlikely to go the final mile in
supporting the Japanese liberation narrative as his primary political patrons
are the Gandhi family, which demands sole credit for India’s independence on
behalf of Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Singh’s attitude to the potent
symbolism of the Pal dissent and the Japanese decolonization narrative was
displayed in Singh’s toast to Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi in 2005:

The dissenting judgement of Justice
Radha Binod Pal is well-known to the Japanese people and will always symbolize
the affection and regard our people have for your country.

On December 14, 2006, Singh upgraded Pal’s judgment to “principled” and an
expression of Indian-Japan solidarity in his speech in the Japanese Diet. He
stated:

"The principled judgment of
Justice Radhabinod Pal after the War is remembered even today in Japan. Ladies
and Gentlemen, these events reflect the depth of our friendship and the fact
that we have stood by each other at critical moments in our history."

This does not look like a matter of parsing the legal and
moral flaws Pal detected in the war crimes tribunal.It looks like Singh’s heart, like Pal’s was
with Japan—and its view that it got jobbed by history as written by the World
War II victors and China benefited
excessively from the unfair Japan = monster framing.

As memories fade of the concrete miseries of Japan’s romp
through Asia, resurrecting the comforting abstraction of the Japan
decolonization narrative is a potent political and diplomatic weapon, despite
the fact that Japan has to be discreet in wielding it before the United States,
which is completely vested in the Greatest Generation/triumph over evil version.

Anyway, maybe India thinks it’s time to repudiate the idea
of war guilt along and give Japan back its rightful place in the sun (and consign
its undeserving rival, the PRC, to the moral and geopolitical doghouse).

Singh did not have to endorse that reliable if somewhat
misleading anti-Chinese bugbear “freedom of navigation” and claim an overt
Indian strategic role in East Asia through the Look East policy.

But he did so in his remarks in Tokyo.

Our Look East
engagement began with a strong economic emphasis, but it has become
increasingly strategic in its content.

…

Our relationship with
Japan has been at the heart of our Look East Policy. Japan inspired Asia's
surge to prosperity and it remains integral to Asia’s future. The world has a
huge stake in Japan’s success in restoring the momentum of its growth. Your
continued leadership in enterprise, technology and innovation and your ability
to remain the locomotive of Asian renaissance are crucial.

India's relations with Japan are important not only for our economic
development, but also because we see Japan as a natural and indispensable
partner in our quest for stability and peace in the vast region in Asia that is
washed by the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Our relations draw their strength from our spiritual, cultural and
civilizational affinities and a shared commitment to the ideals of democracy,
peace and freedom. We have increasingly convergent world views and growing
stakes in each other’s prosperity. We have shared interests in maritime
security and we face similar challenges to our energy security. There are
strong synergies between our economies, which need an open, rule-based
international trading system to prosper.

For outside observers,
India’s overt buy-in validates the idea of the anti-China alliance and the narrative that
the PRC is a rogue actor that needs containment.

It appears that Singh decided to follow his
heart and match Abe’s boldness with his own, making a risky move to help
Abe's anti-China gambit succeed with some conspicuous Indian support.

My personal feeling is that Singh is going too far by
“Looking East” and meddling in the China seas together with Japan, the world’s
third-largest economy and committed China-basher, even if it is simply in
retaliation for China’s conclusion of a “strategic cooperative partnership”
with Sri Lanka and port-related initiatives –the notorious ‘string of pearls’-
with India’s troublesome but less than intimidating neighbors Sri Lanka,
Pakistan, and Myanmar.

The confrontation between Japan and the PRC over the
Senkakus may very possibly not end well, and having India sticking its oar in
will probably not make things better.

If Singh’s ambitions go beyond playing the Japan card in
order to wring better behavior out of China on South Asia and Himalayan issues to concluding an overt alliance with Japan against
the PRC to alter the balance of power in Asia, I think he’s writing checks that
the world—let alone India—can’t afford to cash.

History, as they say, will judge if Singh made the right
bet.If it goes bad, people will be
asking why he placed it so early in the game.

Global Times talked tough on the occasion of the Singh
visit, putting the onus on Abe once again but presumably also sending a message
to India not to end up on the wrong side of (long term) history (as well as
reassuring itself that, despite the pretty unfavorable set of current
circumstances, the PRC will come out on top in the end):

It will take time for
Japan to face the reality that the once only great power in East Asia has to
give way to China, whose GDP and marine strength will surpass that of Japan.
The process will be tougher for Japan, which will be sincerely convinced some
day.

The day will come sooner or later. The little tricks that Japan is playing are
nothing but a struggle for self-comfort, which will not affect the development
of Asia.

Japan is trying every means to hide its decline against China in order to boost
its national morale, but China does not need to compete with Japan to
regain confidence and prove its strength.

The conflict between China and Japan should not be regarded as a
"strategic" game. In fact, the overall strategic future of Japan and China
has already been determined. Gains and losses incurred by the frictions between
China and Japan make no difference to the futures of either country. There is
no need for China to exert too much energy on Japan.

As a growing but young giant, Chinese society will unavoidably have to deal
with various conflicts with Japan. It will be a long journey for China to
become mature enough so that a real great power will emerge with confidence.

This is not a final showdown between China and Japan, neither is it an
opportunity for China to mend its broken fences with Japan. All China should do
is "take it easy." China should be aware that Japan tricks can never
impact China strategy. China should take the initiative to decide when and how
seriously we respond to it.

But maybe Singh sees a once-in-a-career opportunity for
rollback against the PRC with Abe in Japan, the US in Myanmar, and China’s
problems with ASEAN on a prolonged, ugly boil.

It is already clear that India is slow-walking its
negotiations with the PRC over a free trade agreement.If India and Japan both insist that China’s
proposed regional trade zone regime, the RCEP, needs to look more like the TPP,
negotiating initiative for all of the region’s trade pacts may switch over to
Japan and India.

The PRC might decide it is a good idea to draw closer to the
United States (which Abe is discreetly shouldering aside as he pursues his
Japan-centric initiatives and promotes his vision of Japan as a victim of “victor’s
justice”).

The PRC premier, Le Keqiang, found himself in the unlikely
position of trying to reawaken nostalgia for the Potsdam declaration—which
mandated the return to their owners of territories like Taiwan, the Pescadores,
and Manchuria that Japan had stolen—during his trip to Germany.Beyond giving the PRC some kind of claim to
the Senkakus, invoking the Potsdam declaration is probably meant to remind the
United States of a happier time when the West’s writ was respectfully acknowledged
and not covertly defied by the subjugated and defeated nations of Asia.

It will be interesting to see if the PRC decides that, given
the Japan-India partnership, maybe the time has finally come to throw North Korea
under the bus for the sake of Sino-US rapprochement.

On the other hand, if the weakened yen and Abe’s frenetic
regional dealmaking fail to keep the Nikkei afloat and the long-expected
revulsion against Japanese bonds (and the 240% of GDP national debt they fund) materializes
and spikes Japan’s borrowing costs, Japan will be licking its wounds a few
months from now and Singh will face some awkward moments in dealing with
Beijing.

But for the time being, the vision (or to the PRC, the
specter) of an active Japan-India alliance inciting and recruiting opposition
to Chinese strategic and economic penetration in Asia offers the prospect of an
interesting rejuggling of Pacific relationships.